WITH the season ten weeks old, Old Albanians were finally granted a home fixture, with Thurrock the visitors, but were consigned to a third consecutive league loss, going down 27-22.

With John Long returning from National League club Newbury as fly-half, OAs started strongly attacking down the King Harry Lane slope.

Long struck a penalty in the opening few moments after Thurrock were caught handling in the ruck and the same player doubled the OA lead five minutes later after the visitors were again penalised.

With OAs dominating, they extended their lead to 13-0 with a well-worked score with only quarter of an hour on the clock.

The OA's captain, Chris Eke, stole possession at a Thurrock line-out ten yards out and drove towards the line before releasing the prop Bowers who crashed over with Long converting.

Thurrock barely threatened in the first half, with Rowe and Johnson controlling the midfield for OAs and further pressure from the home side was rewarded with Long's 40 metre penalty.

However, OAs were dealt a body blow in the 30th minute when Long, who had been masterfully controlling the play in all areas of the pitch, was the victim of a cynical late tackle and forced off the field with what turned out to be a broken collar bone.

Thurrock finally got on the scoreboard shortly after the break with a controversial penalty in which Day was also sin-binned for his protests and the visitors seemed to sense that they could claw back the deficit although Long's absence was notable in OA's play.

After Eke was forced off the field with an injured hamstring, Thurrock began to take control although it was OA's who extended their lead when Aaron Johnson kicked a penalty after good work from Gareth Day and Ben Farrer.

Both teams exchanged penalties shortly after to make the score 22-6 and with only 15 minutes remaining, OAs looked the likely victors but a disastrous sequence of errors led to an improbable Thurrock victory.

Retrieving a high kick, OA's Southwood was tackled running out of defence and from the ruck, OAs moved the ball down the blind-side but a poor pass was easily intercepted by Thurrock's outside centre who ran into score under the posts.

A poor restart led to further pressure in OA's 22 and when scrum half Day had a kick charged down from the base of a scrum, Thurrock collected the ball and crossed over near the posts but missed the conversion.

However, Thurrock did steal the points deep into injury time when the visitors won a scrum and moved the ball wide to score against the shell-shocked OA's to take the victory.

November 6, 2001 10:30